


There'll Always Be Us

by MissingTriforce



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: And immediately freaks out, Budding Love, Denial of Feelings, Episode: s03e14 Alter Ego, First Kiss, Hand Jobs, Harry calms down enough to recognize feelings, M/M, Missing Scene, Morning After, Morning Sex, One Shot, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Tom is a Sweetheart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:13:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23497333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissingTriforce/pseuds/MissingTriforce
Summary: Harry is together, he knows, he is bound with the sinew and muscle that Marayna was not. Tom holding him is nice, and it is the most natural thing in the world for Harry to place a hand on Tom’s thigh, to apply pressure to help him straighten, and to kiss Tom Paris to make him shut up.
Relationships: Harry Kim/Tom Paris
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37





	There'll Always Be Us

As Harry and Tuvok play the Kal-toh, Harry can feel his mind sink into calmness. Tuvok began the game giving Harry directions, but he falls silent. Harry’s mind began with its usual analytical buzzing, constantly examining and finding solutions and strategies, but it, too, falls silent.

It reminds him of a memory, this calmness. When he was twelve, his mother took him and his father to Lake Tahoe for fishing. His mother loved fishing; his father tolerated it. His mother had an annual summer fishing trip; this was the first time she let her husband and son come along.

Harry had been dubious of this honor. At the time, he was in the middle of a Future Scientist day camp, and he would have rather spent his weekend playing Captain with his friends or doing a holonovel. Instead, he was dragged to this lake with his overly chatty mother.

But the closer they got to Tahoe, the quieter she got. She said less and less, until they cast off their lines and she fell silent. Harry’s father and he had been surprised by this turn of events and unsure whether they were supposed to fill this silence or let it happen.

After some faltering attempts at conversation, they ended up going to the other end of the boat to discuss engineering between themselves. Harry checked on his mother every once in a while. She moved a deck chair near the railing and spent the entire afternoon sitting unmoving in the sun, with her line cast out, a small, contented smile on her face, the lake gently lapping the boat. Harry didn’t understand her actions then, but he did understand why, despite all his mother’s fishing trips, she never came home with fish.

But now he understands.

It’s like a trance, a gust of wind could knock him over, but at the same moment his body feels very solid and heavy. He’s conscious of every movement, how much it takes to animate each muscle. He can feel the strain on his back as he leans forward, the puppet-like mechanics of his arm and fingers as he places a taan. He hardly blinks. His breath and heartbeat are slow and steady.

“I think that is sufficient for now, Mr. Kim,” Tuvok says. “You require rest.”

Harry blinks. Night has fallen in the resort simulation: he is seeing by candlelight alone.

“Thank you for the game,” he hears himself saying. “Can we continue later?”

Tuvok’s dark eyes are watching him, steady and sure. Tuvok’s eyes are always steady and sure. Harry wonders if it’s an older Vulcan thing: Vorik’s eyes are sure, but more soft than steady.

“Yes,” Tuvok replies. “I usually play in the evenings after dinner in the mess hall. You are welcome to join me.”

Harry nods and stands and walks away.

The calmness remains as he walks down the corridors towards his quarters. He doesn’t think, and the fact that Tom’s in his room seems the most natural thing of all.

“Hey,” Tom says, “I was looking for you at dinner, but you weren’t there.”

Tom is sitting on Harry’s couch, where he usually sits for Harry’s clarinet recitals. There is a half empty bottle and two glasses on the table. Harry joins him.

“I looked for you in the holodeck and saw you playing Kal-toh with Tuvok. How was it?”

Harry takes a moment to find words. “It was…good.” Harry is so relaxed, it feels like he’s floating, like he’s observing all this from above. He is still and hovering an inch above his own skin.

“’Good’? That’s all? ‘Good.’ Well, I guess old Vulcan games are worth something. Here I was, waiting for you to finish and it’s almost 0100. Can’t say I don’t like a late night though. Here, I replicated some Jack Daniels whiskey. It’s an old Earth method for getting over a broken heart.”

Harry connects the thought pieces and comes out with, “Marayna.”

“You know, to your credit, at least you fell in love with an intelligent being only pretending to be a holocharacter.”

Tom pours Harry a glass of the whiskey and chinks their glasses together in toast. “Hey, to holocharacters and broken hearts.”

Harry takes a sip for drink and doesn’t cough like he usually would. He doesn’t feel any effects at all. It’s like he’s a pit: nothing registers as coming in. No feelings of loss about Marayna; no anxiety about what the rest of the ship will think; no paroxysms of guilt over Libby.

Harry still remembers Libby. He remembers her laugh. How it made her thin lips widen and the corners of her eyes crinkle. How she’d throw back her head in a guffaw or make those slight clicking noises at the top of her throat for a chuckle. He remembers how she loved going out and being joyful with friends. She loved exploring too, even if it was just the nooks of San Francisco. It usually makes Harry sad to think of Libby like this, because they are so far away from each other that it will take Harry thousands of light years and six decades to ever see her again. So long that she might be dead. So far that it is like she is dead now.

Tonight Harry watches the sadness go by just like his mother watched the fishes. That is to say, he is aware of it existing, but it does not touch him at all. Like flickers of fish tails against a hook. He is calm. Not cold or unfeeling, but calm. He is here and now.

Tom’s still chatting to himself and Harry lets the nonsense gently brush over him, like he is the boat on the lake and Tom is the wind. He leans into it, into the crook of Tom’s arm until Tom is holding him to his side. Harry wonders if Tom is trying to hold him together.

But Harry is together, he knows, he is bound with the sinew and muscle that Marayna was not. But the gesture is nice, and it is the most natural thing in the world for Harry to place a hand on Tom’s thigh, to apply pressure to help him straighten, and to kiss Tom Paris to make him shut up.

Tom makes a noise in the back of his throat and pulls away a little, but only a little. His right hand has found its way to the back of Harry’s neck. Harry likes it there and he knows Tom only places his hand there when he is feeling especially caring.

“Is this about Marayna?” Tom asks. He presses his nose to the side of Harry’s face and takes a breath. His eyelashes tickle, and the breath against Harry’s skin creates goosebumps.

“No,” Harry says. His hand has found its way to Tom’s lapel, and he tugs. “I want you.”

“Okay,” Tom breathes.

Harry nuzzles his way back to Tom’s mouth. It’s soft and wet in there and tastes a bit like whiskey. Harry finds himself very much liking to attach himself to it. The calm pervades, and, like a cloud passing, he notes he’s not kissed a man before, not like this.

One of Tom’s hands stays on Harry’s neck, keeping him close. The other has found its way to the hem of Harry’s uniform and is brushing the skin underneath. Harry’s kissing is insistent and Tom’s is heated. Both breaths are shortening.

It is the most natural thing for Harry’s hand to migrate to Tom’s fly, for Harry to release the pressure built there, for Tom to groan in response to that release, for Harry to swallow the groan down, greedy.

Harry just begins to fondle the skin when Tom abruptly stands up, dragging Harry with him by his Starfleet collar. Harry doesn’t know if that’s panic or passion in Tom’s eyes, but he’s being undressed faster and rougher than he’s ever been in his life.

Harry wants Tom’s clothes off, but he relishes the rough fabric: how it smooths and stretches off Tom’s skin, how it appears out of place on the floor in his otherwise neat room. Harry likes Tom in casual clothes: the Starfleet uniform looks so formal on him, awkward around his naturally jaunty smile.

Harry is feeling his way through the calm and finds his hands framing Tom’s face, guiding their foreheads together. “Tom.”

“Harry,” Tom replies, his voice gravel deep. He kiss-leads Harry to the bed and Tom is lying down and Harry is kiss trailing over Tom’s chest and scenting his skin: he smells too clean almost. Harry prefers how Tom smells after a workout or a hard pilot training session: like sweat and cotton and his triumphant grin, like his shinning eyes.

Tom’s head is back and his eyes are closed at the moment, but Harry can feel his heart through his fingers. “Tom,” Harry says. He grabs their cocks together and strokes.

Tom _yelps_ in surprise and feeling, and Harry keeps doing it. He lets go of his own and leans forward and watches Tom’s face spasm with the pulls. He gentles at the tip, and Tom’s mouth and eyes open; he sees sightlessly into the ceiling, exquisite.

“I’ve always believed in you,” Harry says, suddenly, meaningfully. He is still watching from outside. He is still hard, but he feels as far from orgasm as he’s ever been in his life. “I always trust you. I’ve seen you die in multiple timelines now, and it kills me every instant.”

He lays himself at Tom’s side, skin touching skin, and focuses on stroking Tom’s cock, watching Tom’s face. Tom’s eyes are closed again and his face has gone still. He is listening and pretending not to listen. “You are the best pilot I or the Captain has ever seen. You broke the transwarp barrier as a _hobby_. They said it could never be done and you did it. When you were ill in sickbay, I….” Harry doesn’t know how to finish the sentence, so he doesn’t. He remembers hiding in his duties and his quarters, debating whether to see Tom or not see Tom, how it would affect himself or Tom or both. It was a time of horrors.

Tom is jittery now, shaking with effort. Harry leans down and whispers. “You are my friend and nobody touches you.”

Tom gasps and comes together and through his orgasm he is kissing Harry, sloppy, but kissing nonetheless, his hands on the side of Harry’s face to press them closer.

Tom lets out a shaky, “Harry,” and wraps his arms around Harry, clings to Harry’s chest, tucks his head under Harry’s chin. He locks their ankles and presses so close and Harry can almost feel the roaring silence in his ears, how the roar is broken by Tom’s labored breath.

Harry curls towards Tom, protective, meditative. Harry feels empty. Harry feels calm. He remembers thinking the lake was empty and cold as a child, but it is not. He lets the emptiness swallow him up.

#

Harry wakes up to pressure on his mouth. He is groggy and sure he has morning breath, but Tom Paris is kissing him awake—he thinks it is Tom Paris—but this knowledge is so disjointed and fragmented that Harry needs a moment to think and shower—

The person kissing him does _something_. It may or may not pertain to Harry’s cock, which hasn’t been touched by someone in _years_. Fingers on his glans send warm, flowering heat through him. He groans and before he can process, his legs are opening of their own violation, his right hand goes behind to press his pillow to the back of his head, and his left rests on his forehead because Harry wants to give this person all the room they need.

Harry’s being kissed soundly and firmly and Harry swipes his tongue across the lips in approval. It’s reassuring, this pressure, and Harry would slip back into full dreaming if it wasn’t for the pool of arousal and heat at the bottom of his stomach. His toes curl with the pleasure of the light fondling of his cock’s head.

Harry takes a breath through his nose and the kissing moves confidently and surely to his jaw, his neck, his collar bone, his pecs, his stomach. It feels like Harry’s being deconstructed almost, swiftly taken apart and put together. He’s drunk on the comfort and assurance of his flannel sheets, of the easy companionship encased in sleeping next to someone, of the sleepy familiarity implied by morning sex, of the echo of calmness and clarity of the Kal-toh. This is just so _nice._

And that was before the person put his cock in their mouth.

“ho, ah, ah aw,” Harry breathes, pulling a bit away, only to be more firmly grasped by hands and tongue. They are licking up pre-cum; they are sliding up and down the shaft; they are sucking off with a pop. Harry starts trembling—his weakness was always blowjobs.

“I’m gonna—come—ah!” With a surge that makes them choke, Harry’s spilling himself in their mouth, orgasming through their swallow.

And suddenly, he is awake, he is aware, this isn’t a dream, this is his friend Tom Paris who just gave him a morning blowjob.

Act cool. Act cool, Ensign.

“I never pinned you for a five-minute man,” Tom says. “But here we are.”

Harry hides behind the back of his hand. He replies automatically, the way he should reply to anything Tom says: jokingly. “It’s been awhile, you know.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Tom straddles Harry’s hips easily, happily, hands on Harry’s stomach for balance. Harry peeks from under his hand. Tom’s a swallower—he feels like he should have known that—and there’s a bit of semen on the corner of his mouth. Harry suppresses the urge to lick it off. Why would he want to lick it off?

“So… how are we feeling this morning?” Tom asks. “You don’t have morning breath so stop worrying about it.”

“I’m not worried about morning breath,” Harry grumbles. Grumbling is good too: that is an ordinary Harry-Tom interaction. Being in bed together naked is not. Harry doesn’t understand. He remembers how they got in the bed, but the memories don’t make sense. What had he been thinking?

Tom’s face pinches in concern, his blue eyes washing out. Harry noticed this before: when Tom is distressed, his eye color lightens. Harry doesn’t know how to explain it and thinks maybe he’s just panic-imagining things.

Tom’s hands glide to Harry’s sides, and Harry feels a preemptive pang of regret. Of course he regrets; he is regretting. Tom asks, voice low, “Then what’s wrong? What could possibly be wrong this early in the day?” Harry doesn’t want to say what he’s thinking. He’s not sure what he’s been thinking since playing Kal-toh with Tuvok. “Harry,” Tom warns. “Tell me.” Tom kisses him and Harry tastes himself after all.

Harry takes his hands away from his face and doesn’t let them curl into Tom’s hair or hold Tom to him or anything else he might want to do. This is new for him.

He lets Tom finish the kiss and pull away, smiling again, eyes bright.

“I-don’t-think-I-can-do-this,” Harry says, all in a rush. The strange calm—what he hell had be been thinking—is gone now at least and reality crashes in merciless. He sits up, making Tom sit up too. “It’s too much.”

“What?” Tom looks like he’s been punched. Pinpricks of tears appear. He visibly solidifies them into steel and clenches his jaw in anger. He slides off Harry and sit naked and cross-legged on the bed. “Harry, you can’t be serious. It’s the 24th century. We’re in the Delta Quadrant. Same-sex relationships aren’t exactly a new thing.”

“I—I just can’t.” Harry gets up and fumbles for clothes—his clothes from last night are in a pile. Boxers, trousers, undershirt. He can’t look Tom in the eye and keep a straight face. His stomach feels like its doing summersaults while being pummeled. Harry craves reality, an excuse. “My parents wouldn’t want it.”

“So last night _was_ about Marayna.” Anger rises out of Tom’s voice, like an engine starting up. “I can’t believe it.”

Harry has no idea if Tom is right or not. Where’s his turtleneck? He sneaks a glance at Tom and is momentarily shocked how much Tom can look like B’Elanna. His face cocked to the side, slightly colored in fury, a rigidness in his shoulders—Harry is in deep shit for this one.

“Well, last night meant something to me,” Tom says. “And it meant something to you, whether you admit to it or not.”

Harry freezes, and his mind is crowded with doesn’t. He doesn’t regret the loss of the sight of Tom’s lean musculature—how they felt against his own. His heart doesn’t clench as Tom rises and quickly dresses. His breath doesn’t quicken to panic as the doors slide open and Tom leaves. He doesn’t feel like crawling back into bed and not waking for a week.

Or does he?

Harry drops his turtleneck, sits on floor, and puts his head in his hands. What has he done?


End file.
